Wherever You Will Go
by Amy Williams
Summary: After being cooped up in the foundry for so long, Felicity finally wants a taste of the field again, even if it means just sitting in the van. What will happen when she finally gets back out there? What kind of danger awaits our favourite blonde IT girl, even when the coast seems clear? Will she need her knight in shining green armour? AU, non compliant to S3. Olicity.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N. I was inspired by Charlene Soraia's version of "Wherever You Will Go" and Missy Higgins's "Where I Stood". This will become more obvious as the story continues. Every time I hear them I think Olicity. **

**Let me know what you think!**

The rain bounced off the hood of the van as Felicity sat in silence. Digg shifted uncomfortably in the driver's seat next to her; no doubt pissed off to have been put on the sidelines for another mission. Parked in a narrow alley one block from the warehouse in which Oliver and Roy had just disappeared, Felicity and Digg sat in the dark waiting for their cue to act.

The job was simple. A small time gang of former Iron Heights residents, with an express ticket paid for by the arrow, had robbed a convenience store a few blocks away and grabbed a hostage for good measure in order to assure their escape. With Felicity's traffic cam magic, it hadn't taken "Team Arrow" (as Felicity fondly referred to them; much to Oliver's disapproval, although no one else would get away with it and live to escape without a good lecture about taking themselves seriously and all that) more than ten minutes to track the gang to this warehouse by the docks.

Felicity would normally have been relegated to coms duty, and left alone in the foundry. It seemed like forever since she had actually been out in the field, and she was ready for a change of scenery, no matter how temporary. Since she and Oliver had gotten together, he treated her like a China doll: to be kept somewhere safe, unbroken and pristine. After wasting an additional ten minutes with puppy dog eyes and reminding Oliver how routine this mission was, she was finally allowed to come. Roy and Digg just rolled their eyes and laughed. Of course she had persuaded him. She was the only one who ever could.

Oliver's only condition had been that she sit in the van with her behemoth laptop at the ready beside Digg with his Beretta strapped to his hip and the keys in the ignition.

She sighed overdramatically and Digg smirked. "You knew exactly what you were getting yourself in to."

"I forgot how boring the van is. Couldn't we have at least stopped at Big Belly Burger on the way?" she slouched into the foam seat.

The coms clicked on, and Oliver's voice rang through, "We got the hostage, but there is no one else here. He's unconscious, but doesn't seem to be hurt. They must have cleared out while we were on our way here."

"It's not my fault you haven't installed a hotspot in the van", Felicity retorted. Digg snickered beside her, and she could hear Roy laugh through Oliver's com, no doubt earning him one of the all famous Oliver death stares.

"Felicity. Focus. There's a computer in here. Come and see what you can get out of it. It might lead us to where they are. Digg, if you could run this guy to the hospital, we are going to sweep a one block radius just in case we missed something."

Digg pulled up to the warehouse and opened the back. Felicity hopped out, laptop and tech bag in hand, as Oliver laid an unconscious middle aged man, no doubt an unlucky shopper, on the floor of the van. Roy stood at the entrance as she clicked her way to his side across the concrete.

"It's in the North-West corner" he said, pointing toward a small room on the other side of the open room. She gave a curt smile and continued on her way, heels clicking. She was half way across the vast room when Oliver caught up to her.

"We are just going to do a quick sweep. This whole area is secure, but just to be safe," Oliver slid a small blade out from behind his back and placed it in her hand. "You hear a sound, and you lock this door and get under the desk. Keep your com in your ear and if anything happens, if anything feels wrong, you let me know as soon as possible." He stepped closer and placed his hand on her shoulder. She smiled up at him. He was so cute when he cared about her. She almost laughed.

"What?" he said, looking concerned.

"Nothing. Just you. It just funny that I'm the only one that knows." She replied. He raised an eyebrow as if to repeat his question, sensing the mockery. "You're such a softie." She winked and laughed. This earned her a slight smile. She still wasn't use to her ability to do that: to make Oliver actually happy. He moved his hand to the side of her face.

"And you better not tell anyone." He returned her wink from below his large hood. He leaned down and gave her a soft kiss. "See you in a few minutes" he said gently, and moved to return to where Roy was still standing; now kicking at the ground to avoid the PDA happening in the warehouse.

Felicity pushed open the door and coughed. There was a thick layer of dust on everything except the computer. She sat down in the cracked and worn leather chair that smelled of must, clunked the awkwardly weighted knife beside the keyboard, and began her work. She swept the whole hard drive and couldn't find anything. It seemed that the most interesting thing that had happened on this computer in the past ten years was a rousing game of solitaire (that the player had inevitably lost). She coughed again and gave up on the computer. Such a waste, she thought to herself. How could someone treat a computer so terribly? It's like adopting a puppy only to move into a tiny apartment and never bring it for walks. Just unthinkable. She turned it off to put it out of its misery and turned towards the exit. She shut the door behind her without looking back, neglecting to notice the small blinking red light behind the air vent, pointing directly at the computer.

* * *

They piled through the back door of the foundry, conveniently bypassing any Verdant party-goers. The boys had found nothing on their large sweep, and decided to call the mission a success: they had rescued the hostage, albeit under strange circumstances, and all they had gotten was two hundred bucks from the store. The would strike again, but next time they wouldn't get away with it.

It was only about 10 o'clock when they got back to the foundry, so the boys decided to go out for a routine patrol. Digg was chomping at the bit to get back out there after being cooped up in a van and then sent as a chauffeur for some unconscious guy. The grin on his face as he double checked all of his magazines made Felicity smile.

Oliver walked over to where she sat at her computers watching them. "You might as well head home, we are going to be a while, and nothing interesting is going to happen. It's just a patrol."

Felicity yawned in response, not even considering disagreeing with him. She stood and curled into Oliver's chest as he opened his arms. "Be safe," she whispered. "I love you."

"And I love you." He whispered back, kissing the top of her head. "Don't wait up for me." She looked up into his ocean blue eyes and blinked. How did she ever get so lucky? She stood on her top toes and gave him a quick kiss. She began to pull away when his arm hooked behind her lower back and pulled her close. She didn't resist, running her fingers through his hair and down his back. She was lost in his kisses. When they both came up for air he said, "You were amazing tonight, but that never stops me from worry about you."

"Well, that is something we need to work on," she brushed off. She picked up her bag and coat and walked to the stairs. She turned as she reached the bottom step. "And I know. I really am." She said with mock cockiness.

* * *

The rain hadn't let up by the time she pulled up to her apartment and parked the car. It had even gotten worse since they had finished their mission. All of the cars in front of her apartment even seemed to warp and blur into the same black SUV. She ran for the door, covering her head in a discarded grocery flyer from a year ago that always seemed to reappear in her front passenger seat. By the time she got inside, the broccoli on the front had bled into the steaks on page 6. She tossed it in the trash and made for the elevator.

"Out of order. Seriously? Ugh." She grunted and walked into the stairwell. She never liked taking the stairs. Not only did she hate them because of her affinity for fashionable footwear, but after what happened with her mom and Cooper the management decided that the dingy old elevators needed cameras; the stairwell apparently did not.

She made it to the first floor landing when she smelled sweet tobacco. One of the angst ridden teenagers on the first floor must have been too good to stand out in the rain. She laughed. She probably would have done the exact same thing.

As she rounded the corner to begin her trek upwards, she heard the creek of a door. Before she could turn around to look behind her, she felt her head collide with the cement wall beside her, and everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks for all the positive feedback guys! It isn't going to be a novel, but I have got at least a couple more chapters coming for you.**

**Let me know what you think of it!**

The beginnings of consciousness slowly began to creep into Felicity's mind. She mindlessly wondered why her apartment smelled so dank and musty. She heard a mechanical hum coming from behind her, blocking out the intermittent sound of distant voices. She mentally noted asking Oliver to look at her AC again. Had she fallen asleep on the couch in front of the TV with a container of Kung Pow chicken on her lap again? Had she stayed up waiting for Oliver? She couldn't remember. She lifted her head slightly from where it had sagged for what must have been hours. The instant she moved, her head pounded. "Gah… what the-?" She moved to rub her head where it ached. Her hands didn't move. She saw a flash of a memory in her mind's eye. Her head. The concrete wall of the stairwell. Then nothing.

Her eyes shot open. Everything was blurry at first. Definitely concussed, she thought. A crack in her glasses lens along with small drops of crimson that stained her left shoulder, just below where her head pounded, told her she hadn't dreamt the whole thing up. A single ray of light pierced the room from a small crack in the thick black curtains that lined the wall on her left. The room was huge; walls stretched up so high she could barely see the ceiling. The floor of this vast space was plain concrete covered in pools of what she hoped was just water. In this light she couldn't be certain. Her blood pressure sky rocketed: her face felt flushed and the room seemed to move around her. She couldn't catch her breath. She was panicking. She tried to move her hands again. They were tied behind her back so tightly, and for so long, that they were full of pins and needles; useless.

Her movement must have attracted attention because she now heard no voices, only the shuffling of approaching feet. She could feel someone standing directly behind her. The deep laugh that followed made her skin crawl. "We had bets over when you would wake up. Shorty thought you were dead." The voice circled her like a shark. She refused to look up at him, to give him the satisfaction of seeing her fear. "You will pardon Rick, he doesn't always know his own strength." This earned the man a laugh from the people that remained behind her. She figured there were at least more 5 of them.

* * *

It was well past 3 a.m. by the time Oliver placed his bow back in the case. Digg was attempting to hide a yawn. It had been his idea to circle back to the warehouse after their patrol and see if the group had returned. He was right in his hunch, but they had left again. This time, instead of leaving behind a hostage, there was a dead video camera lying on the computer desk where Felicity had worked. It must have been some use to the gang so they brought it back to the foundry to charge and hopefully recover some semblance of a clue from it.

Oliver plopped himself down into Felicity's chair. As he sank into the chair he noticed something; it smelled like her. He smiled to himself knowing only he would notice. Only he was subconsciously tuned to notice anything Felicity. How is it that he could never get her out of his mind? Even something as trivial as just the hint of her perfume left on a chair sent his heart into flutters. Only she was capable of doing this to him.

He recovered his stoic expression as he plugged the camera into the side of one of Felicity's monitors. It took a moment for the camera to get enough juice to turn on, but when the red light began to blink and the picture showed up, Oliver's blood ran cold.

Oliver, Roy, and Digg were right back to the small computer room at the back of the warehouse. They watched as the door opened and a tiny blonde computer genius walked in and sat down. Oliver held his breath. Digg fast forwarded through footage of Felicity sitting at the computer, sighing in resignation as she turns it off, getting up, and walking out. The screen went black, but only for a moment.

An all too familiar face filled the screen. James McLaughlin, 6' 2" with shaggy brown hair, peered into the camera with a sickening grin on his pock-marked face. He was one of the six inmates who escaped iron heights just three weeks before. "Hello Arrow." Oliver tensed all over. "I'm going tell you a story-" he began patronizingly. "It all started with a young man. This man was free to do whatever he wanted. He had everything he could have dreamed of. Life was great. But one day, a big bad grass coloured nitwit with a demented hero complex shows up-" his voice was becoming increasingly loud and seeping with disdain, "- and decides to take away everything the young man had ever worked for!" McLaughlin takes a moment to collect himself, breathes deeply once, then smiles once again at the camera.

"Now, I know what you might be thinking." McLaughlin clears his throat and makes his best whiney child impression, "'Everybody gets what they deserve, James!' Well, I would tend to agree with you, which is why my friends and I have decided to take a stab at the whole justice thing. Avenging angels- as it were. I won't keep you long, as I imagine you have places, or rather a place, to be. Just know this: you took my life from me- from all of us- and now we are going to get even. We were just hoping to get a shot of you minus the hood, but what we got was so much better." His smiled widened, and Oliver felt sick.

"No one was expecting that cute little number. Don't even try to convince me that you don't see it. No man sends a woman into a completely empty room armed with a hunting knife unless they have an extreme case of the I-love-yous." McLaughlin laughed. Oliver was burning. "Tell me, does she know? Want me to tell her for you?" His face became stone cold. "The best part about all of this is that by the time you even find this, she will already be ours. I'm not a cruel man though, and she is far too gorgeous to disfigure, so I propose a trade. Her life for yours. You have until midnight."

Oliver was out of the chair and reaching for his bow before Digg could even turn off the now static covered screen. "Where are you going, man? You don't even know where they have her!" Digg reminded him.

"I have to see if I can make it. They might not have gotten to her yet. She could still be safe." He said without looking at Digg, as if he were trying to convince himself. He seemed to snap into Arrow mode and directed, "Digg, get to work on the video. See what you can find out. Roy, try calling her. Tell her to get out of there." He turned and raced up the stairs three at a time. "Felicity…" he whispered.

* * *

The feet that had circled her stopped directly in front of her. A hand reached down and gently lifted her chin. She looked away in disgust. _Smack_. Her head ricocheted to the side and her ears began to ring. A small drop of blood escaped the side of her mouth. She didn't make a noise. She looked him right in the eyes as a tear slid down her face.

"Much better! It's crazy what a mere few hours of unconsciousness followed by a heavy dose of sodium amytal can do to a woman. " The man exclaimed.

"What do you want with me? Who are you? How long have I been out?" Felicity asked, voice shaking.

"It doesn't matter who I am. You were out about eighteen hours. Ricky is a little out of practice, it was only supposed to last sixteen. See, I really can't stand the sound of a nagging woman, but we couldn't very well keep bashing your head into walls, I made your boss a deal."

"What? Why?" she asked confused

"None of us thought him and his thick head would be clever enough on his own to get all the dirt he used to find us and put us away the first time. There must have been some brains behind your little operation. Imagine my surprise when you sauntered onto my video footage. It didn't take long to find you. For someone so smart, you can be really stupid. Google hot blonde computer genius and guess who shows up within the first ten results. A certain Felicity Smoak: MIT, top of her class, and more awards and accolades than I can probably even pronounce let alone understand." He paced back and forth as he spoke, the bowie knife in his belt was visible under his brown leather jacket whenever he turned to change direction. This made her nervous. He didn't seem the kind of guy who was likely to keep his promises.

"Please just let me go. Just leave me here and go!" she pleaded.

"Why would I do that? I am about to get everything I want!" he boasted, stopping directly in front of her once more.

"Please, I-" he slapped her hard across the face once more, sick of her killing his enjoyment with questions and whining. This time, a small gashed opened just below her eye from the ring he wore.

"I'm so sorry," She said quietly, seemingly to no one, as she looked at the floor. She began tearing up.

"HA! What do you have to be sorry about?" he mocked.

"Because he is going to kill you." She softly began to weep, not for herself, but for the part of himself that Oliver would willingly sacrifice in order to save her.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hey! So, so sorry for the obnoxiously long delay in getting you the next chapter, school has been nuts. Thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoy this chapter. The next one will not take nearly as long to get up. Happy reading!**

**As always, let me know what you think!**

It was nearly 4 a.m. when Oliver arrived at Felicity's apartment building. He had less than 21 hours left, but he hoped he wouldn't need them. He almost ripped the door to the front entrance off its hinges as he tore into the building. For the entire bike ride over he had been playing the worst case scenarios over and over in his head: Felicity bleeding out face down in a ditch, Felicity struggling to hold on to consciousness at the bottom of a cold dark lake somewhere, Felicity screaming his name in the darkness, Felicity… dead. He resisted the urge to lose control, but it took every ounce of training and will power he possessed.

An out of order sign hung on the elevator. Oliver cursed under his breath. The elevator had been fine when he left the apartment that morning. Now that he thought about it, it was serviced last weekend and should be running fine. "NO," Oliver's eyes widened.

He ran for the stairs, dreading that it was too late. Oliver was about to fly into a blind rage as he approached the first floor landing and stopped dead. Two small black parallel scuff marks that may have been unnoticeable to anyone else jumped out at him. On the wall above where the scuff marks lay Oliver saw a small smattering of fresh blood with a single golden protruding from it.

He took the remaining stairs 3 by 3 and reached her apartment in no time. The door was locked and few envelopes lay on the welcome mat under his feet. She hadn't made it home.

* * *

Digg sat at the computer as Roy peered over his shoulder. Felicity's cell tracking program was open and Digg was typing feverously. "She always made this look so damn easy," he exclaimed as he slammed his index finger down on the backspace button and began typing again.

"It's alright. We'll find her. We have time Digg, just breath," Roy offered as Digg slammed his fist on the desk after another mistake. The clock in the bottom right hand corner of her screen read 4:56:27, ticking away as if to torment them.

Digg pushed back from the desk, with a little more force than necessary, and stood up. "It's not alright! You saw what can happen to him. Look at what it did to him when he lost his mother, when we lost Sara. What the hell do you think he is going to do if anything happens to Felicity?!" He put his hands on his head and began to pace. Roy sat in Felicity's chair and continued entering the information to track her cell phone.

"I suppose it's something we have never had to worry about," Roy began. "Thea was trained by Merlyn and Lyla is A.R.G.U.S. Felicity doesn't have any training. She so… vulnerable."

"Oliver always thought that if he could keep her at arm's length he could protect her. When he finally let her in I thought maybe he could finally be happy." He paused. "This is going to destroy him." He leaned up against the empty Arrow costume case.

"He is going to blame himself, and he's not wrong to." Roy hit the enter button on the keyboard and slowly turned around in the chair. "She isn't a breakable set of china, Digg. She is one of the strongest people I have ever known. She is one of us. She took a bullet for him for God's sake! How could he not at least give her the tools to be able to protect herself?" Roy paused, not breaking eye contact with Diggle. "She can't only be half in this life. It's all or nothing."

"Your right kid, but I have a feeling Oliver would tend toward the opposite end of that ultimatum that we, or she, might like."

"You're damn right I would," Oliver said sternly as glided down the stairs like beautiful but dangerous puma. "All, or _nothing_." He reached the bottom of the stairs and pushed back his hood to reveal the stoic face of a man with far too much practice hiding behind it.

Roy made to apologise or protest, but it didn't matter. Oliver's went up, and Roy went silent.

"Where are we with her phone?" Oliver asked.

Digg replied, "She had so many safeguards on her phone in case Lance ever tried to use it to track her to you. Luckily for us, she left clear instruction on how to remotely disable them in the event of an emergency."

The thought made Oliver sick. Did she think he would let something like his happen to her? Had she always known deep down that he wouldn't be able to protect her? He had been fooling himself to think that he could have both; that she could have both. Maybe Ray was right; all or nothing. He couldn't put her at this kind of risk ever again.

Digg, noticing the hard line of Oliver's mouth deepen, added, "We put it all into her software, so it is just a matter of time. All we can do it wait."

"Call me when you get a hit." Oliver tossed his hood back up and turned towards the stairs.

"The sun will be out soon. Are you just going to go running around the city in broad daylight? You'll get caught, or recognized, or worse," Roy reminded him.

Oliver turned to face him. "That is not my concern right now. I can't just sit around here waiting, I need to act." Roy got up to grab his bow. "Alone," Oliver added sternly and left the foundry without a sound.

Oliver had headed straight for his bike and took off without a destination. The police radio that Felicity had patched in to his coms system was going wild. B and E, domestic violence, armed robbery; just what he needed: an outlet.

* * *

By the time Digg and Roy called him back to the foundry at 6:30 a.m., 4 thugs robbing a 7/11, 2 wife beaters, 2 break and enter suspects, and 3 purse snatchers were lying in the ICU of Starling City General.

"Oliver," Digg began as Oliver walked in the back door. "We go a hit on the phone, but you aren't' going to like it." Oliver was silent. "The signal is coming from the cemetery." Oliver's brows furrowed, confused.

"Let's go," he said quickly. "Suit up."

* * *

The clock in the van read 7 a.m. by time they reached the cemetery. They parked a few blocks away and did a wide sweep of the area before moving in. They were completely alone. Not a soul breathed amongst the headstones. The trio approached the spot where the signal was coming from. A fresh grave had been dug and filled.

"Oh my God," Diggle said under his breath, barely able to speak.

"Did they burry her alive? Those sick sons of- But we had until midnight!" Roy began, enraged.

"An air supply, maybe? Who cares, we found her! Felicity we've got you!" Digg yelled.

Oliver's heart sped and he stumbled towards the grave as Roy and Digg raced back to the van for shovels. By the time they returned, Oliver was on his hands and knees digging. They tossed him a shovel and joined in. After what felt like an eternity, Oliver's shovel struck something hard.

Roy and Digg climbed out of the hole as Oliver dusted off what appeared to be a coffin. Digg handed him a crowbar and waited with bated breath.

"Why would they have left her phone on? They would had to have known we would track-," Roy began, but it was too late.

Oliver had cracked open the lid with the crow bar and began to open the coffin.

That was when the bomb went off.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: There aren't any reasonable excuses I can makes as to why it has take so long to post again, so I won't try to make any. Just know I'm sorry, and I am glad to be back in the world of this story.**

* * *

The blast was muffled by the lid of the coffin, but only to an extent. Oliver was launched up and out of the grave, his fall being cushioned only by the grave of one Stephanie Alexander 1903-1989. The sound of his head ricocheting off the stone resembled that of the crack of the bat in a game winning homerun. He lay motionless, contorted in an unnatural position on the damp grass. A deafening ring permeated the air around them, or perhaps it was just in his head, as Diggle struggled to his feet and approached the limp Oliver. Roy had begun to stir just to Diggle's right and he sighed in relief as he caught it out of the corner of his eye; his only concern now: was Oliver alive?

He fell to his knees beside his friend, careful to check for all possible injuries. No shrapnel? Check. No bleeding? Check. No pulse? Diggle pried off the remnants of the now tattered gloves he had worn and placed a very delicate two fingers on Oliver's neck. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Thoughts that Diggle had pushed down since the day he agreed to help Oliver in his tirade now bubble to the surface of his mind. Is this how he lost his best friend? A faint throb interrupted John's thoughts. Worried it may have been his own nerves, he removed his hand and tried again. Another beat of Oliver's hear sent Diggle's working once more. Oliver took a small breath, grimacing as he began to regain consciousness.

"I have to save her… Felicity… I'm sorry…" Oliver whispered before he once again fell limp in Diggle's arms.

"Roy, we need to get him back to the foundry, now! Help me get him into the van!" Digg yelled, barely able to hear is own voice over the piercing resonation in his ear.

The two men awkwardly carried Oliver to the van and laid him in the back, sparing no thought for minor bumps he might incur. If they didn't get him back to the foundry quick enough, Oliver wouldn't live long enough to even feel them.

* * *

The darkness was blissful. No pain, no worries, no anything. When it began, it was a mild annoyance. The ringing began as innocently as a small fly, ever present but easily ignored, into a crescendo of tormenting agony. It pierced through the darkness and brought a blinding light crashing into his vision. Nothing existed but the light and the ringing. His senses reeled in torment with no respite. He was consumed with the pain, his mind lingering on every dreadful second. _I could let go, _he thought. He could be free of the pain if he would only let go. Nothing in the world seemed worth enduring this hell for. Nothing but…

"Felicity!" he yelled, his eyes opening and focussing on the incandescent light that hung above him, illuminating the dirt and grime that stuck to his scarred form. Diggle stood beside the table looking down at him while Roy sat in the chair at his side, head level with Oliver's.

"Well it's about damn time" Digg joked, the strain of worry evident in his voice.

"Stabbed in the chest, dropped off a cliff, and blown up all in the same year. You should really think about retirement, Oliver" Roy joked, hoping his bravado would distract from the crease that had formed between his eyebrows.

Oliver swung his legs over the edge of the table and held his left side as he looked up at Diggle. "Anything on-" he got out before Digg interrupted him, immediately knowing what his friend's first thought would be.

"We think we know where she is," Diggle began.

Roy spoke up, "Well not exactly, but now that you're back from the dead… again… maybe you can give us a hand."

"He wasn't dead," Diggle retorted as he walked towards Felicity's station.

"Well severely unconscious isn't a thing, and he looked pretty dead to me," Roy said with a smile. "A ruptured ear drum, one broken rib, three bruised ribs, possible concussion, and a nasty goose egg on your head. Nothing you can't handle," he added lightly. His face became serious as he turned back to Oliver and placed his hand on his shoulder. "Seriously though, I'm glad you're alright. Don't go checking out on us, alright?"

Oliver lifted his had from clutching his side and placed it on Roy's shoulder, mirroring his sentiments. "Over my dead body," he said with a smirk as he stood. Since losing Tommy, Oliver doubted he would ever have a "brother" again, but somehow along the way he had ended up with two. The sweet moment was over in an instant and Oliver stood behind Diggle at Felicity's desk. He couldn't help but still imagine her sitting there, his stealing glances at the porcelain skin at the nape of her neck, wishing he could bend down and brush a kiss across it.

Digg brought him back into the moment when he said, "We have been picking up on a lot of increased police activity in this area." He pointed at a small section on the east side of the city, where the night life and nefarious activities of shady characters thrived. This place had houses, stores, warehouses, schools, everything. "The activity in the east quadrant of the city is bad on a good day. What kind of hellmouth had to open up to garner this much activity?"

"James McLaughlin, " Oliver answered, his distain darkening his voice.

"Calls have been coming in all day for robberies, breaking and entering, car jackings-" Diggle said.

"'All day?'" Oliver interjected. "What do you mean all day?! What time is it? How long have I been out?" His voice began to rise and the hairs on the back of his neck began to stand up as he panicked frantically on the inside.

"Oliver you were out for ten hours. It's 6 p.m." Diggle answered as though he were approaching a wild stallion. Oliver was pacing along the cement floor attempting to regain his control. After a few seconds of deep breaths his "Arrow" persona took over and he stood once again in front of the computers.

"Have you got an address?" he asked flatly.

"We have been trying to get a hit on address using any of his known contacts or associates, but nothing so far," Diggle answered slightly dejected.

"What about family?" Oliver offered.

"We ran it. No McLaughlins of any relation in the area."

"And…?" Oliver waited.

"And what? There aren't any, we checked twice."

"What about his mother's side, John?" Oliver asked impatiently, trying to hold back the anger and fear that threatened to burst from his skin.

Diggle's eyes widened in a cloud of horror and embarrassment. His nimble finger's deftly moved across the keyboard as a series of self-deprecating and angry words left his mouth. "How could I have missed this," he began.

Oliver placed a hand on his shoulder and sighed. Oliver was done being the one without the control. He needed to keep it together. Diggle was beginning to come apart with worry and anguish. He hadn't had the luxury of being unconscious for most of the day, and had had to deal with more pressure and fear than Oliver liked to imagine. "We are going to get her back. I promise."

When the computer beeped with its results, the three men in the room held their breath.

"We've got her," Diggle sighed in relief as Roy beamed. Oliver made no sound; he was already picking up his bow and headed for the door. He slipped a small syringe into his pocket as he passed by the medical supplies and out into the light of the low hanging sun. The Arrow would find his bullseye.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Here's some more. I'm loving the way this story has come out. Let me know what you think! **

* * *

"Tick-Tock. Tick-Tock. Tick-Tock," James taunted.

Felicity steeled herself and looked up to face his taunts.

"I guess I was wrong. Maybe he is just a big idiot and can't find our little party," James giggled. "Either that, or lover boy has given up on his little blonde pet." He bent toward her staring directly into her eyes that gave her away. "What's the matter darling? That one hurt just a little bit? Which part: the fact that he doesn't care about you, or that you're just his defenceless little puppet?" James's venomous smile turned Felicity's stomach. A small tear escaped her steely gaze and splashed onto her thigh. Her eyes met his in a challenge, but the words still hurt. She knew better than to believe the words of this lunatic, but they hurt none the less. There is no way he would leave her here.

She didn't cry for her life and the danger she was in, but for the exponentially greater danger Oliver would walk into to free her from this. She felt useless; like nothing more than a "puppet" in the games of men. Felicity took a deep breath and spit in his face that still lingered so near. Never again would she be so helpless.

James raised his hand, face flushed red with anger and teeth bared. In the place of the open hand she had endured, a jagged clenched fist formed

* * *

The three men stood anxiously in an abandoned parking lot two blocks from the location Felicity's computer had given them. Oliver paced back and forth along the same invisible ten foot line on the crumbling pavement, fists clenched in anger but face flat with resolve. Both Digg and Roy motioned vigorously while regurgitating some speech Oliver had given them on teamwork a few months back. He didn't care. The sound died in his ears as his heartbeat sped in a panic and the visions of a broken and bleeding Felicity clouded his vision.

Oliver stopped pacing and stood motionless, facing his two friends face on. "We can't just barge in there all at once. He has her. He wants me at any cost. She means nothing to him. How quickly do you think he will dispose of her just to see us falter? We need a plan," Oliver began. Oliver had formed his own plan the minute he heard McLaughlin's demands. He wouldn't risk it. He wouldn't risk her. If he could lead his friends into a plan they thought might work, he thought he might be able to keep them safe.

"They've got one guard posted at the front and one at the back," Oliver pointed to the tablet he had borrowed from Felicity's desk. She always hated it when the guys moved her things. Her tech was like her children. Oliver forced down the sad smile that threatened his charade. "If we can take them out at the same time, we might have a chance of slipping in unnoticed. You two take the front and I'll take out the one in the back. On my signal we act. If we rush from both sides they will be disoriented and we will have the advantage." Oliver looked to Roy. "If you get a high enough vantage point you can take out at least two of the remaining men. Digg, you and I will take the last two." He paused, and looked again at the tablet showing the front of the decrepit building where Felicity had been stored like an animal and treated god knows how for almost an entire day. He looked back to his friends and hoped they would agree.

Digg eyed Oliver cautiously. "But you were just unconscious for an entire day! Don't be stupid. I can handle one guy on my own. Take the kid with you."

"Uh, I'm right here, man. That's hurtful." Roy countered.

"I'm fine," Oliver responded through gritted teeth. "This is the plan. It'll work." He needed this to work. If they didn't believe him his own plan would fail. "I've had worse, John." Oliver placed his hand on Digg's shoulder and gave what he hoped felt like a reassuring squeeze. Digg breathed deeply and nodded resignedly. Oliver sighed and turned to go. His hand gently, and he hoped unnoticeably, grazed the pocket of his emerald armour to reassure himself of its contents and said, "Goodluck," as he slipped into the darkness that had now fully enveloped the city.

* * *

"We're in position," Digg whispered into the coms.

"Wait for my signal," Oliver said, standing on the rooftop of the adjacent building. He watched as the guard made his way from one side of the building to the other, only leaving the sightline of the back door for more than ten seconds. _Too obvious_, Oliver thought. About five feet up from the door was a clouded and murky window that was slightly askew from the frame. _I guess it will do_. All that Oliver could see on the wall below the window ledge was a small fuse box at about head height. He silently thanked God form having watched Tommy play all those _Assassins Creed _while he nursed his fake hangover in the days he was still playing the party boy. A small part of himself ached in the bittersweet memory of his oldest friend. He thought he could protect them all. Would he lose another piece of himself in another's death? Never again, and certainly not Felicity.

Oliver pulled the small syringe from his pocket and jabbed it into his leg, releasing the adrenaline. The sharp ache in his chest began to dull, his vision focused, and the rest of the world fell away.

He threw a small pebble into the trash cans on the side of the building leading to his friends. They would be inconvenienced, but they would be alright.

The goon at the door bolted around the corner and down the side of the building to where the noise originated.

"Oliver, I repeat, we are in position. What are you-? What the-?"

"Did you hear that?" One guard said to the other as he rounded the corner.

"We've got a problem," Digg began, but no one was on the other end. Oliver dropped his ear piece in a small puddle near where he had landed on the ground and took off full tilt towards the door. He jumped and stepped one foot on the door handle and the other on the fuse box. Using his momentum and his strength he launched himself upward and onto the ledge, pulling himself up silently. He heard the sounds of landing punched and angry grunts and he ducked into the window and out of sight.

* * *

He stepped out onto the catwalk above the large empty room. Felicity sat tied to a collapsible metal chair in the center of the room under a hanging light. Panic and fear rose within him in an instant. Was she alright? Had he hurt her? Was she scared? The fact that she was still upright was a good sign that she was, in the loosest terms, alright. The blood that stained his favourite top of hers told him that James had hurt her. Rational thinking fell at the wayside and Oliver began imagining the satisfying ways he would end James's life. He ached to see her treated so. His hand braced himself on the ledge of the balcony, ready to leap down and kill all four of them all without question or thought for the consequences; but then he looked to her normally porcelain face and took pause. A small trail of blood dripped down the side of her soft lips and down her neck, a deep purple and blue bruise had already begun to stain her soft cheeks in the spot he loved to coax her out of her nightmares with small gentle kisses. As the blind rage threatened to take completely control he looked to her eyes. Despite her injuries, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Her eyes held no fear as she boldly held James's gaze. He was immeasurably proud of her. He had always thought himself the strong one, physically anyway, but her resilience completely floored him. A smirk had invaded his countenance before he had even realised. _ God, I love you, _he thought, now dumbly smiling in the darkness. James bent over her saying words he was too distracted to pay attention to. Something about defenceless puppets? A tear rolled down her bruised cheek and he saw something in her face change. His face was so close to hers and Oliver knew what was coming before James did. Brave, but certainly not smart. She spat at him James reeled back wiping at the left side of his face. Oliver pulled back on his bow as James's shaking fist began to rise. Felicity's eyes shut and she braced herself for the impact.

"If you EVER hope to have use of your hand after today you'll think again," Oliver's voice boomed, filling the nearly vacant space. He leapt over the railing of the catwalk and onto the cold hard concrete below and directly into the center of McLaughlin and his men who were all drawing their weapons on him.

James lowered his hand and turned to the hooded man with a twisted smile.

Oliver lowered his bow. "We had a deal."


End file.
